Review & Update The Case For “Scenario 2” Q&A Videos Sector & Market Analysis 401k Plan Manager As loyal readers are already aware, I live in Houston. Normally, during the month of August, temperatures tend to compete with the surface of the sun while rain tends to be a more random occurrence. In other words, there is little difference between Houston and the Sahara Desert, generally speaking. This year, however, is a different story as we are preparing to deal with the impact of the first major hurricane (category-3) since Bret made landfall in 1999 and Alicia in 1983. (Ike, which hit the Texas coast in 2008 was only a cate...
British Pound Forecast: GBP: Signs of Stability Begin to Emerge The British Pound fell again last week, as we forecast, but signs of stability were emerging by the week-end, suggesting that its decline may have come to an end, for now. Japanese Yen Forecast: Japanese Inflation Weak but Stable; Yen Trends Remain Elusive The four-month range in USD/JPY continued as prices remained pinned-down near support; But will a slew of high-impact releases out of the U.S. drive risk trends that might finally bring a directional move back into the Yen? Australian Dollar Forecast: Australian Dollar Still Looks Pinioned By Watchful RBA The Australian Do...
The latest index reading came in at 21.1, up from 20.8 the previous week. The RecessionAlert Twitter Feed, @RecessionAlert2, had an interesting observation about the indicator levels in February. RecessionAlert has launched an alternative to ECRI’s Weekly Leading Index Growth indicator (WLIg). The Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) uses fifty different time series from these categories: Corporate Bond Composite, Treasury Bond Composite, Stock Market Composite, Labor Market Composite, Credit Market Composite. RecessionAlert emphasizes that WLEI is a growth index and its data is no more than a week old, as is ECRI’s WLIg. He...
Large cap stocks in China have performed very well in 2017. As said many times before China was in our top 5 favorite stock markets in emerging markets. India was our top pick among emerging markets. The strongest segment in China’s stock market are large cap stocks, represented by FXI ETF. The 5-year chart of FXI is shown below. Every investor vividly remembers the strong rally of China’s stock market in 2014 and 2015. Back then, it was driven by A-shares in China. Interestingly, this time it is large cap stocks as well as tech stocks that are stealing the show. It is clear, based on this chart, that Chinese large cap stocks are well on...
As a reminder, it was in Jackson Hole three years ago that Draghi laid the groundwork for the launch of the ECB’s 2.3 trillion-euro asset-purchase program. They looked pensive before he spoke… Following Yellen’s “unhawkish” nothing-burger of a speech (which has sent the broad dollar index to 2 year lows), all eyes were on whether ECB President Mario Draghi would mention the euro’s strength, but he disappointed, instead focusing on global trade and protectionism. Draghi failed to mention policy in general, but did warn regulators (similar to Yellen) that… When monetary policy is accommodative, lax r...
Deals and Financings Columbia China has begun construction on a $150 million 500-bed multi-specialty hospital in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province (see story). ColumbiaChina is a 50-50 joint venture between Columbia Pacific Management of Seattle, a senior living/hospital company focused on Asia, and Temasek, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. The new hospital, which is Columbia’s second in China, will open in 2019. Columbia China currently operates Shanghai Kaiyuan Orthopedic Hospital, a 232-bed facility. Fosun Pharma (SHA: 600196; HK: 2196) and Gland Pharma have devised a fallback strategy to implement if India deci...
Video Length – 00:01:30 <iframe align="middle" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src=" 8.25.17-sitfa ” width=”560″> Transcript: The cheek smacker this week goes out to the 10 CEOs who have been selling their stock in their own companies while doing stock buybacks. Something stinks! Stock buybacks are designed to reduce the number of outstanding shares so there are fewer shares for the same earnings. They increase the earnings per share. The purpose is to boost the market value of shares. And it works! When a company does a buyback, the price of its shares g...
This is a crucial weekend update to watch with lots of opportunities to discuss as the monsters of tech are hitting key threshold areas. Watch this video to find out what expect next week, what crucial levels to watch, and why risk still looms in the market. Video Length – 00:20:58...
According to unconfirmed sources, Tahoe Resources (TAHO) has learned that the Guatemalan Constitutional Court issued a decision yesterday to uphold the lower court’s preliminary ruling to suspend its mining license at Tahoe’s Escobal Mine. This new ruling caused Tahoe’s shares to sell off more than 20% during trading today. I first wrote about the trouble at Tahoe Resources Escobal Mine in my article, WORLD’S 2ND LARGEST SILVER MINE SHUT DOWN: Implications For Company & Market: First, after the Guatemalan Supreme Court suspended operations at Escobal, Tahoe’s stock price took a real beating falling 33% that day.In the past w...
For all the breathless newsflow over the past 7 days, the single most consequential event of last week was the sudden jump in debt ceiling/government shutdown odds following Donald Trump’s confrontational Phoenix speech, which laid out a problematic dilemma: Trump’s Mexican wall, or a government shutdown. While various financial pundits rushed to discount the odds of a worst case scenario, the market – in Treasury bills, if not so much equities – was spooked, sending the “pre-post default bill” spread to the widest on record… … as October 5/12 Bill yields continued to blow out after various pol...